030.01
“Sam are you set?” I asked.
I had Ma-rye-a turn around and place us just outside of the window and off to the left, out of the way. I had Sam train our weapons on the mouth of the window. His reaction, and recognition time was far superior to mine and if the Tiltode came though that gate either alone or chasing the Calpernia, I wanted to be prepared.
“Ready and waiting, Captain,” Sam replied.
He had no sooner spoken than the Calpernia came sailing through unhindered. Jake pulled his ship up beside Ma-rye-a as soon as he caught sight of her and Ma-rye-a threw his and Arr’s imagine up on the viewport.
“You okay?” he asked with a concerned look.
“We’re fine. How about you?” I replied.
“A little damage to the hull, but nothing a good Refitting Station can’t bang out.”
I saw Arr behind him putting out a small electrical fire on the bridge with Kay-o their protect Dar-dolf getting in the way. Arr kept pushing the beast down as the thing lunged at the extinguisher as though he thought he had to do battle with it.
“Jake, can you call Kay-o?” Arr yelled.
Jake turned from the monitor and yelled at the beast. It seemed to pay no attention to the reprimand until Jake waved his glove in the air, rolled it up, and then threw it across the bridge. Kay-o went after it like it was the best steak dinner in the verse. Jake lost more gloves that way. I smiled at the action. The thing that looked like a cross between an earth wolf and a bear had been Jake’s partner longer than Arr had and saved his life any number of times, but he was still just a pup and loved to chew.
“Thanks,” Arr said as he finished suppressing the fire. “I’ll buy you a new pair when we hit a Trade Post.”
Jake waved him off. When Arr finished he came up to the viewport and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat next to Jake.
“So, I really want to hear what you did to get two Tiltode vessels after you, but we came on our own mission so that will have to wait for later,” I announced. “As I explained, kinda, when I called we need your help Arr.”
“You want me to talk to the Hummers?” Arr asked to confirm.
“Yes, it appears as though they figured out something was wrong with their beacons when the virus started to spread and they were the ones who shut them down, not the Valarians as I.N.C. is reporting. Now everything that anyone tries to do to repair them is being intercepted by the Hummers and stopped before it can do any good.” I turned toward Daniel in my co-pilot’s seat. “This is my friend, Daniel. Daniel, this is Jake and Arr. The beasty behind them chewing the glove is Kay-o.” Daniel gave a nod. “Daniel is pretty confident he can fix the beacon if the Hummer will allow him.”
“That’s good news,” Jake said, as Kay-o came up to push his nose under Jake’s arm, glove in mouth. Jake gently pushed him away. “Go!” he commanded. “Space has been a mess since the NBs went down.”
Kay-o took his prize over to nudge Arr. I saw Arr put his hand in his spacer suit pocket and slip him some Red Raspberry Goo Chews, an overly sweet kid’s candy the critter really loved, in exchange for Jake’s glove. I don’t know why he bothered. The glove would never be useful again.
“The thing we were hoping you could help with in communicating with the Hummers is to get them to not only let us repair ‘A’ beacon, but also to tell us how they communicated in order to shut all the NBs down. The Valarians had no idea they were linked together even though they made them. The Hummers have been up to something.” I said.
“I will do what I can,” Arr said, as he stroked Kay-o’s head. The big lug leaned into Arr so heavily that Arr pulled up his legs into the chair in order to make room for the critter in between the chair and the console in from of them. He wrapped his arms around his knees. He was very lean and agile. “Talking to a Hummer is not an exact science,” Arr warned. “I think I can get them to leave one beacon alone long enough for you to fix it, but I am not sure about the other. Learning how they communicate with each other is a pretty complex concept to get across. I will do my best.”
“That’s all we can ask,” I replied. After all, if Arr couldn’t fix the NBs, it looked as though the Verse would just have to learn to live without them and that, my friends, was a pretty ugly thought.
030.02
I handed Arr a cup of his home planet’s herbal stuff called Bitter Sweet. I couldn’t stomach the it, but having grown up with it, he loved it. Arr had been at it for over five hours now - sitting here just a few hundred yards from the NB humming his little heart out with no apparent results.
I had Ma-rye-a holding steady within a pod jump of the Calpernia. Arr explained that the Hummer related to the Calpernia as being the one that talked to them, not Arr, so I ferried Daniel over so he could coordinate with Arr. Arr was trying to convince the Hummers the Calpernia was willing to assist them with the repair of their damaged beacons.
“Thanks,” Arr said, as he took a break and a sip of his Bitter Sweet. He stood to stretch and rolled his shoulders. He had been hard at it. It wasn’t do to not trying that we were still sitting here.
“Any luck?” I asked, as Jake came up behind me with a plate of sandwiches.
Daniel, sitting in Jake’s pilot seat reached over and nabbed one. He took a bit and smiled with satisfaction.
“What’s in this?” he asked waving the sandwich in question.
“Malfit,” Jake answered. He passed the plate around to the rest of us and then sat it down on the console behind him. He leaned up against the bridge railing and started in munching on his sandwich.
“Good,” Daniel complimented.
“Chopping it and mixing it with pickles and onions takes the gammie taste away.”
Jake knew how to cook one thing, stew. If there wasn’t any chance of that then you were going to be stuck with sandwiches made from whatever he could find. It was only since Arr joined him that he had added a little variety to his menu - mainly because the Henu was mostly a vegetarian.
“You want me to get you some veggies, Arr?” I asked around a mouthful of sandwich.
I was pretty at home aboard the Calpernia. Jake and I had known each other for years.
“No, I’ll go get something in a minute.” He sighed and sat back down in his chair. “I think I’m close.” He opened the com-link again and started to hum. It was almost like listening to a cat purr. Maybe that was why Arr could speak Hummer talk, he not only purred like a cat, he looked a bit like one mixed with a lot of human. He had a light coat of red/gold fur all over his body except for his face and the palms of his hands, and he had gorgeous, crystal blue, cat eyes with almond shaped pupils.
All of a sudden the ship began to vibrate. I could feel it through the soles of my spacer boot. The plate of sandwiches began to slide off the console and Arr’s empty mug, which was sitting on the arm of his chair, made a jump toward the deck at his feet, but Arr’s quick reflexes caught it just in time. The vibration increases and the ship literally began to hum.
Jake looked out toward the NB. “What are they up to, Arr?”
Arr’s hum changed in pitch from a low steady gentle sound to almost a high pitched squeal. “NO!” he yelled at the beacon.
Every light on the bridge went out and we were plunged into darkness.
“Arr?” Jake asked in a cautionary voice.
“Shit!” Arr said just as the lights and the bridge equipment began to come back to life.
We all heard the sound of the Calpernia powering up its thrusters.
“Arr?” Jake repeated in what sounded a bit threatening.
“Daniel?” Arr turned to him in the co-pilot seat.
“The NB just downloaded the virus to the Calpernia.” Daniel’s fingers began to fly across his flat, which was linked into the Calpernia’s system.
“Shit, indeed,” Jake confirmed.
030.03
“The Calpernia’s weapon’s array just came online,” Ma-rye-a said in my ear bud.
“Get out of here!” I shouted.
Jake looked at me as though I lost my mind. I motioned to my ear. He knew I kept in contact with my ship. “Calpernia’s weapons just came up,” I informed him.
Jake stepped to the console and started trying to shut the system back down.
“Come on girl, talk to me,” he coaxed the Calpernia. “Daniel!” he shouted.
“Working…” Daniel answered and continued to push images of data round on the flat in his lap.
“Arr!” Jake hissed.
Arr didn’t even bother to answer. He was humming so loud I thought the bulk heads were vibrating.
“I do not wish to countermand your orders, Captain, but you might need us close at hand for a hasty EVAC,” Ma-rye-a pointed out in her logical, calm voice.
“You can’t EVAC if you are blown up,” I countered. “Get out of here and hide until I call you back. That’s an order!”
“Affirmative,” Ma-rye-a answered.
I saw her start to pull away through the viewport on the bridge. At the same time we all heard the Calpernia let loose with her Phase IV Plasma Blasters.
Ma-rye-a did a quick roll to the left and the shot just missed her hull.
“Punch it!” I shouted.
Ma-rye-a shifted into hyper drive and disappeared.
“Daniel!” Jake growled again. “We just almost lost our ride home,” he warned.
I knew that wasn’t all of Jake’s worry. The Calpernia was like family to him. It had been his father’s ship and his home for most of his life.
“Almost there,” Daniel assured us all.
The Calpernia’s thrusters hit full power and the ship took a hard left, pointing her nose toward the last position Ma-rye-a just held. Everything on the bridge went flying including me, the platter of sandwiches and all our mugs. Jake grabbed for the console in front of him. Arr flew out of his chair and onto the floor. Luckily Daniel remained seated. Being a newbie to space he had felt more secure being strapped in.
We could feel the Calpernia cranking up to make the jump into hyper-drive in order to pursue Ma-rye-a.
“No,” I cried. We couldn’t let the Calpernia catch Ma-rye-a.
Jake drew his blaster. He aimed at the console. This was not a good idea. Using a blaster aboard a ship was very risky - especially when the Calpernia was making erratic maneuvers. The shot could go wild and punch through something vital. Like one of the passengers.
Jake put the nose of his blaster on Calpernia’s main computer screen. With his other hand he palmed a kiss to her console.
“No!” Arr cried. The Calpernia’s memory banks would be fried. She would never be the same again. Even a Refitting Station would not be able to retrieve her decades of data.
I struggled to me feet.
At that moment…The ship went dead in space. It was like the engines failed, total shut down - from absolute chaos to total silence.
We all turned toward Daniel. He was wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt to keep it from falling in his eyes, but he had a huge smile on his face.
“Zack’s program works,” he announced. “It works!”
The ship began to vibrate and at first we all looked panic stricken, thinking the Calpernia was powering up again.
“It’s the Hummer,” Arr said. And we all took a deep breath.
The ship literally vibrated from the deep tone of the Hummer’s voice.
“Damn,” Arr said under his breath.
“What?” Jake asked, as he holstered his blaster.
“It was a test. A damn test,” Arr hissed. “They didn’t believe me when I told them we could stop the virus from spreading further. They decided to give it to the Calpernia and see if we could really get rid of it.”
We all looked at each other in disbelief.
“They’re ready to help us now,” Arr said, as he hummed back.
“Hell of a way to show their cooperation,” Jake growled and flopped into the pilot’s chair.
“Sam are you set?” I asked.
I had Ma-rye-a turn around and place us just outside of the window and off to the left, out of the way. I had Sam train our weapons on the mouth of the window. His reaction, and recognition time was far superior to mine and if the Tiltode came though that gate either alone or chasing the Calpernia, I wanted to be prepared.
“Ready and waiting, Captain,” Sam replied.
He had no sooner spoken than the Calpernia came sailing through unhindered. Jake pulled his ship up beside Ma-rye-a as soon as he caught sight of her and Ma-rye-a threw his and Arr’s imagine up on the viewport.
“You okay?” he asked with a concerned look.
“We’re fine. How about you?” I replied.
“A little damage to the hull, but nothing a good Refitting Station can’t bang out.”
I saw Arr behind him putting out a small electrical fire on the bridge with Kay-o their protect Dar-dolf getting in the way. Arr kept pushing the beast down as the thing lunged at the extinguisher as though he thought he had to do battle with it.
“Jake, can you call Kay-o?” Arr yelled.
Jake turned from the monitor and yelled at the beast. It seemed to pay no attention to the reprimand until Jake waved his glove in the air, rolled it up, and then threw it across the bridge. Kay-o went after it like it was the best steak dinner in the verse. Jake lost more gloves that way. I smiled at the action. The thing that looked like a cross between an earth wolf and a bear had been Jake’s partner longer than Arr had and saved his life any number of times, but he was still just a pup and loved to chew.
“Thanks,” Arr said as he finished suppressing the fire. “I’ll buy you a new pair when we hit a Trade Post.”
Jake waved him off. When Arr finished he came up to the viewport and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat next to Jake.
“So, I really want to hear what you did to get two Tiltode vessels after you, but we came on our own mission so that will have to wait for later,” I announced. “As I explained, kinda, when I called we need your help Arr.”
“You want me to talk to the Hummers?” Arr asked to confirm.
“Yes, it appears as though they figured out something was wrong with their beacons when the virus started to spread and they were the ones who shut them down, not the Valarians as I.N.C. is reporting. Now everything that anyone tries to do to repair them is being intercepted by the Hummers and stopped before it can do any good.” I turned toward Daniel in my co-pilot’s seat. “This is my friend, Daniel. Daniel, this is Jake and Arr. The beasty behind them chewing the glove is Kay-o.” Daniel gave a nod. “Daniel is pretty confident he can fix the beacon if the Hummer will allow him.”
“That’s good news,” Jake said, as Kay-o came up to push his nose under Jake’s arm, glove in mouth. Jake gently pushed him away. “Go!” he commanded. “Space has been a mess since the NBs went down.”
Kay-o took his prize over to nudge Arr. I saw Arr put his hand in his spacer suit pocket and slip him some Red Raspberry Goo Chews, an overly sweet kid’s candy the critter really loved, in exchange for Jake’s glove. I don’t know why he bothered. The glove would never be useful again.
“The thing we were hoping you could help with in communicating with the Hummers is to get them to not only let us repair ‘A’ beacon, but also to tell us how they communicated in order to shut all the NBs down. The Valarians had no idea they were linked together even though they made them. The Hummers have been up to something.” I said.
“I will do what I can,” Arr said, as he stroked Kay-o’s head. The big lug leaned into Arr so heavily that Arr pulled up his legs into the chair in order to make room for the critter in between the chair and the console in from of them. He wrapped his arms around his knees. He was very lean and agile. “Talking to a Hummer is not an exact science,” Arr warned. “I think I can get them to leave one beacon alone long enough for you to fix it, but I am not sure about the other. Learning how they communicate with each other is a pretty complex concept to get across. I will do my best.”
“That’s all we can ask,” I replied. After all, if Arr couldn’t fix the NBs, it looked as though the Verse would just have to learn to live without them and that, my friends, was a pretty ugly thought.
030.02
I handed Arr a cup of his home planet’s herbal stuff called Bitter Sweet. I couldn’t stomach the it, but having grown up with it, he loved it. Arr had been at it for over five hours now - sitting here just a few hundred yards from the NB humming his little heart out with no apparent results.
I had Ma-rye-a holding steady within a pod jump of the Calpernia. Arr explained that the Hummer related to the Calpernia as being the one that talked to them, not Arr, so I ferried Daniel over so he could coordinate with Arr. Arr was trying to convince the Hummers the Calpernia was willing to assist them with the repair of their damaged beacons.
“Thanks,” Arr said, as he took a break and a sip of his Bitter Sweet. He stood to stretch and rolled his shoulders. He had been hard at it. It wasn’t do to not trying that we were still sitting here.
“Any luck?” I asked, as Jake came up behind me with a plate of sandwiches.
Daniel, sitting in Jake’s pilot seat reached over and nabbed one. He took a bit and smiled with satisfaction.
“What’s in this?” he asked waving the sandwich in question.
“Malfit,” Jake answered. He passed the plate around to the rest of us and then sat it down on the console behind him. He leaned up against the bridge railing and started in munching on his sandwich.
“Good,” Daniel complimented.
“Chopping it and mixing it with pickles and onions takes the gammie taste away.”
Jake knew how to cook one thing, stew. If there wasn’t any chance of that then you were going to be stuck with sandwiches made from whatever he could find. It was only since Arr joined him that he had added a little variety to his menu - mainly because the Henu was mostly a vegetarian.
“You want me to get you some veggies, Arr?” I asked around a mouthful of sandwich.
I was pretty at home aboard the Calpernia. Jake and I had known each other for years.
“No, I’ll go get something in a minute.” He sighed and sat back down in his chair. “I think I’m close.” He opened the com-link again and started to hum. It was almost like listening to a cat purr. Maybe that was why Arr could speak Hummer talk, he not only purred like a cat, he looked a bit like one mixed with a lot of human. He had a light coat of red/gold fur all over his body except for his face and the palms of his hands, and he had gorgeous, crystal blue, cat eyes with almond shaped pupils.
All of a sudden the ship began to vibrate. I could feel it through the soles of my spacer boot. The plate of sandwiches began to slide off the console and Arr’s empty mug, which was sitting on the arm of his chair, made a jump toward the deck at his feet, but Arr’s quick reflexes caught it just in time. The vibration increases and the ship literally began to hum.
Jake looked out toward the NB. “What are they up to, Arr?”
Arr’s hum changed in pitch from a low steady gentle sound to almost a high pitched squeal. “NO!” he yelled at the beacon.
Every light on the bridge went out and we were plunged into darkness.
“Arr?” Jake asked in a cautionary voice.
“Shit!” Arr said just as the lights and the bridge equipment began to come back to life.
We all heard the sound of the Calpernia powering up its thrusters.
“Arr?” Jake repeated in what sounded a bit threatening.
“Daniel?” Arr turned to him in the co-pilot seat.
“The NB just downloaded the virus to the Calpernia.” Daniel’s fingers began to fly across his flat, which was linked into the Calpernia’s system.
“Shit, indeed,” Jake confirmed.
030.03
“The Calpernia’s weapon’s array just came online,” Ma-rye-a said in my ear bud.
“Get out of here!” I shouted.
Jake looked at me as though I lost my mind. I motioned to my ear. He knew I kept in contact with my ship. “Calpernia’s weapons just came up,” I informed him.
Jake stepped to the console and started trying to shut the system back down.
“Come on girl, talk to me,” he coaxed the Calpernia. “Daniel!” he shouted.
“Working…” Daniel answered and continued to push images of data round on the flat in his lap.
“Arr!” Jake hissed.
Arr didn’t even bother to answer. He was humming so loud I thought the bulk heads were vibrating.
“I do not wish to countermand your orders, Captain, but you might need us close at hand for a hasty EVAC,” Ma-rye-a pointed out in her logical, calm voice.
“You can’t EVAC if you are blown up,” I countered. “Get out of here and hide until I call you back. That’s an order!”
“Affirmative,” Ma-rye-a answered.
I saw her start to pull away through the viewport on the bridge. At the same time we all heard the Calpernia let loose with her Phase IV Plasma Blasters.
Ma-rye-a did a quick roll to the left and the shot just missed her hull.
“Punch it!” I shouted.
Ma-rye-a shifted into hyper drive and disappeared.
“Daniel!” Jake growled again. “We just almost lost our ride home,” he warned.
I knew that wasn’t all of Jake’s worry. The Calpernia was like family to him. It had been his father’s ship and his home for most of his life.
“Almost there,” Daniel assured us all.
The Calpernia’s thrusters hit full power and the ship took a hard left, pointing her nose toward the last position Ma-rye-a just held. Everything on the bridge went flying including me, the platter of sandwiches and all our mugs. Jake grabbed for the console in front of him. Arr flew out of his chair and onto the floor. Luckily Daniel remained seated. Being a newbie to space he had felt more secure being strapped in.
We could feel the Calpernia cranking up to make the jump into hyper-drive in order to pursue Ma-rye-a.
“No,” I cried. We couldn’t let the Calpernia catch Ma-rye-a.
Jake drew his blaster. He aimed at the console. This was not a good idea. Using a blaster aboard a ship was very risky - especially when the Calpernia was making erratic maneuvers. The shot could go wild and punch through something vital. Like one of the passengers.
Jake put the nose of his blaster on Calpernia’s main computer screen. With his other hand he palmed a kiss to her console.
“No!” Arr cried. The Calpernia’s memory banks would be fried. She would never be the same again. Even a Refitting Station would not be able to retrieve her decades of data.
I struggled to me feet.
At that moment…The ship went dead in space. It was like the engines failed, total shut down - from absolute chaos to total silence.
We all turned toward Daniel. He was wiping sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt to keep it from falling in his eyes, but he had a huge smile on his face.
“Zack’s program works,” he announced. “It works!”
The ship began to vibrate and at first we all looked panic stricken, thinking the Calpernia was powering up again.
“It’s the Hummer,” Arr said. And we all took a deep breath.
The ship literally vibrated from the deep tone of the Hummer’s voice.
“Damn,” Arr said under his breath.
“What?” Jake asked, as he holstered his blaster.
“It was a test. A damn test,” Arr hissed. “They didn’t believe me when I told them we could stop the virus from spreading further. They decided to give it to the Calpernia and see if we could really get rid of it.”
We all looked at each other in disbelief.
“They’re ready to help us now,” Arr said, as he hummed back.
“Hell of a way to show their cooperation,” Jake growled and flopped into the pilot’s chair.
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